> Frugality inertia: a lifetime of good savings habits can’t be transitioned to a spending phase.
This is my first thought when faced with the FIRE community, and even when such a thing didn't exist yet, there were always people like that. A personal example: my uncles. They lived a very humble life, no kids, had a total of 2 small cars in the 30 years I knew them, went 15 days on holidays 60km from home. They died with over 600k euros just in savings (plus 2 apartments).
Does this make sense?
Depends. Do you think they were happy with their lifestyle?
I have a friend who is happily collecting his pension, has plenty of cash in the bank, but still works because he chooses to. He's a bit less frugal than your uncles but still lives well below his means.
Happiness for sure is a personal concept but I think they were in general on the "we came into these lives to suffer" boat. So, I think they were not "happy" for a healthy definition of happy, but they probably not even interested in being happy.
It would be a bit too long/detailed/personal answering that, but IMO a healthy definition of "happy" involves using the money you earn to make your life easier most of the time, during different phases and under most situations. For example, living in a house that is physically loosing pieces, that should be fixed to avoid problems, it will not generate happiness through consumption, but it will relieve you from stress of possible bad consequences. Not doing that when you do have the money indeed, it's not healthy.
Spending money on those things takes a lot of effort though, maybe they just had ADHD and didn't want to think about all the ways they could spend money?
Typically it is much easier to not spend money than to spend money. A trip to a foreign country is more effort then a local vacation, an expensive renovation is more effort than just living as is etc. A big home is more effort to clean, a big yard is more effort to manage, a big car takes more work to keep reasonable etc.
Depends entirely on what you value. Some speculative propositions:
-Some find less value in material things and worldly experiences as they age, so the expected happiness return on splurging can decline.
-Some find living by a principle of some kind (eg- humbleness and frugality) to be very fulfilling in itself.
-Some value being relatively protected from risk and misfortune, and ultimately there’s no upper limit on risk insulation.
-Some highly value being able to leave something behind to the people, organizations or causes that they love.
-Finally, these motivations can change over time and act in concert to shape the story in ways that might not be apparent when you just examine the visible surface facts.
Yes, money in the bank means you don't worry, that is by far the most impactful part of money. Spending more doesn't make you happier but having money so you don't have to worry is huge.
Ads try to tell you that you will be happier if you spend money, but if you learn to ignore those signals you can be perfectly happy on very little.
That and the not-fun part where you really don't have a clue if you are going to die when 60 or 65 or maybe 90. Then you also don't have a clue if you become a burden on your family for years - where that money would be used to take care for you - or you just don't wake up one day without means to use any of the savings.
> Frugality inertia: a lifetime of good savings habits can’t be transitioned to a spending phase.
This is my first thought when faced with the FIRE community, and even when such a thing didn't exist yet, there were always people like that. A personal example: my uncles. They lived a very humble life, no kids, had a total of 2 small cars in the 30 years I knew them, went 15 days on holidays 60km from home. They died with over 600k euros just in savings (plus 2 apartments). Does this make sense?